RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ranked-choice-voting-is-bad-for-everyone-11625674248?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

When it comes to counting votes, America’s political parties want to keep or gain their own advantage. The public interest, however, demands a nonpartisan method. No neutral method has yet been devised that merely elicits the people’s will without twisting it one way or another. Ranked-choice voting is an attempt that has its own twist and will make elections worse for both parties.

The idea isn’t new but it has gained favor, mostly from the left. It can be dismissed as too complicated and, coming as it does from professors, too demanding for most voters outside New York City. But I would like to present three deeper faults in it that concern how voters think, for ranked-choice voting is intended to make them think in a certain way.

First, by ranking choices a voter is required to divide his vote between a favorite candidate and some merely acceptable ones. The first choice is what the voter privately wills—the representative who suits him best. This choice is not directed at the common good, which requires that voters consider what others want. In a free country voters should desire a common good superior to the wishes of private individuals to prevail.

Ranked-choice voting makes the common good inferior to each person’s private first choice. The common good of the country typically gets ranked second choice or below for each citizen.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/07/good-news-criminals-manhattans-next-d-a-has-your-back/

Promoting social decay in the name of social justice, Alvin Bragg threatens to be a disaster for New York City.

R eeling psychologically and economically from the pandemic, New York City could use a boost. Unfortunately its central borough’s choice for district attorney is a guy whose big selling point is telling us about all of the criminals he won’t be prosecuting.

Alvin Bragg has won the Democratic primary for D.A. of New York County (Manhattan) by promising not to prosecute minor crimes such as trespassing, resisting arrest, turnstile jumping, and traffic offenses. In a debate, Bragg (who previously prosecuted state crimes in the attorney general’s office and federal ones in the Southern District of New York) boasted that he had only ever prosecuted one misdemeanor, when he charged some men for blocking access to a Planned Parenthood office.

“Non-incarcerations are the outcome,” read his campaign materials, “for every case except those with charges of homicide or the death of a victim, a class B violent felony in which a deadly weapon causes serious physical injury, or felony sex offenses.” In an overwhelmingly Democratic city, Bragg is almost certain to win the general election against a Republican opponent in the fall. His proposals threaten to be yet another catastrophe for Manhattan — the economic heart of the region — by bringing San Francisco’s laissez-faire prosecution philosophy to New York City and promoting social decay in the name of social justice.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-dncs-dishonest-voting-case-against-arizona-11625608666?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

Protecting the right to vote while maintaining public confidence in the integrity of the results is every public servant’s sacred duty. With that in mind, I defended Arizona’s election safeguards before the Supreme Court in March. Last week, in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, the justices ruled 6-3 in our favor, reaffirming the ability of states to administer secure elections with outcomes every voter can trust.

The Democratic National Committee asked the court in 2016 to strike down Arizona’s statutes on in-precinct voting and ballot harvesting as violations of the Voting Rights Act. The DNC didn’t have a sound or compelling argument, so it lapsed into calling Arizona “racist” for passing the law. I am thankful the justices saw through this partisan attack and upheld our common-sense measures. The court’s ruling is a win for election integrity at a time when the far left conducts propaganda campaigns to trick people into believing any election law that protects against voter fraud is “Jim Crow 2.0.”

The irony is that the DNC chose to attack Arizona, a state that offers some of the most convenient ways to vote. You can vote early in-person, vote on Election Day, or request a no-excuse absentee ballot. Don’t want to get out of the car? We also have drive-through ballot drop-off sites. Contrast that with other jurisdictions such as Delaware, Connecticut and New York, which require bureaucrats to approve your reason for absentee voting. Why are those requirements not being challenged? It’s clear that the DNC prefers to pursue its partisan power plays in what it deems to be battleground states.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/559574-eric-adams-wins-new-york-city-mayoral-primary

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams has won the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, setting himself up as the overwhelming favorite to win the general election in November.

The Associated Press called the race for Adams shortly after the latest batch of results in the ranked-choice primary were released on Tuesday afternoon. 

Adams, a former police captain who entered primary voting as the front-runner, bested a crowded field of Democrats, including former New York City Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, former presidential candidate Andrew Yang and civil rights lawyer Maya Wiley.

Adams will face off against GOP candidate Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels.

Just before the race was called, Adams said in a statement that “while there are still some very small amounts of votes to be counted, the results are clear: an historic, diverse, five-borough coalition led by working-class New Yorkers has led us to victory in the Democratic primary for Mayor of New York City.” 

https://amgreatness.com/2021/07/05/why-trump-haters-have-set-their-sights-on-j-d-vance/

The Progressive Left has a bullseye on J. D. Vance. Ever since he announced his run for the U.S. Senate in Middletown, Ohio last week to replace retiring Republican Rob Portman, the media has been bashing him. The Daily Beast claims he’s “an avatar of GOP corruption” and is upset that he mentioned Jeffrey Epstein and John Weaver as sex predators (the author says that’s a QAnon conspiracy!), while New York magazine says Vance’s campaign “feels doomed” less than 24 hours after he made his announcement speech in front of a pumped-up crowd of around 500.  

The liberal press is joined in its opposition to Vance by the anti-Trump ex-Republicans at the Lincoln Project, which spent close to $100 million against Trump last year. Bill Kristol and a list of other D.C.-based Trump haters have spent the days since his announcement calling Vance a “dirtbag” and a racist for using horrible terms like “nation-state.”

These same people have said almost nothing about Vance’s opponents in the Republican primary. Josh Mandel doesn’t seem to interest them, despite some warning signs about his candidacy—including the fact that much of his fundraising team resigned—or questions about his electability since he was trounced in his 2012 Senate race against far-left Sherrod Brown. 

Likewise, they haven’t had much to say about his other competitor Jane Timken, the former chairman of the state GOP. She, too, has some serious political problems, including defending her protégé, Ohio Representative Anthony Gonzalez’s vote to impeach Donald Trump and the fact that her family’s steel company outsources Ohio jobs to China.

So why are they so focused on J. D. Vance? Fox News host Tucker Carlson seems to like him, which probably only adds fuel to the fire. He said last week, “I’m really glad you’re doing it. J. D. Vance, I admire you and I wish you luck.”

Still, there’s a political angle that probably makes the anti-Trump contingent’s silence strategic: they realize the other candidates’ flaws make them weaker in the general election against Representative Tim Ryan, the likely Democratic nominee, and they would like to see the Democrats pick up what should be a safe Republican seat in the Senate.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/07/05/james-clyburn-yeah-im-open-to-voter-id-n2592029

Was it a dream? Is it our imagination? What happened? Voter ID requirements were long considered facets of white supremacy and of Republicans wanting to suppress to vote. This was Jim Crow 2.0, remember? For years, voter ID requirements were popular. Across geographic, political, and racial lines, the act of showing a photo ID to vote was met with overwhelming approval. So, are Democrats listening now? This was an interesting admission from top Democrat Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) (via CNN):

James Clyburn, a member of House Democratic leadership, said Sunday he was “absolutely” open to West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin’s proposed changes to election law reform that include a voter ID requirement — as long as it’s equitable.

“We are always for voter ID. We are never for disproportionate voter ID. When you tell me that you got to have a photo ID and a photo for a student activity card is not good but for a hunting license it is good,” Clyburn, the House majority whip, told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.” I don’t know of a single person who is against ID’ing themselves when they go to vote. But we don’t want you to tell me my ID is no good because I don’t own a gun and I don’t go hunting.”

The comments from the South Carolina Democrat, who has previously criticized voter ID requirements as a form of voter suppression, comes days after the Supreme Court ruled two provisions of an Arizona voting law that restrict how ballots can be cast do not violate the Voting Rights Act. After Senate Republicans blocked a path forward on an elections reform bill and as GOP-led state legislatures move to enact restrictive voting laws, Democrat lawmakers are also calling for action, including ending the filibuster.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/drop-the-georgia-election-lawsuit-11625517739?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

Attorney General Merrick Garland is the front-runner so far for 2021’s bad timing prize. The Justice Department last month rushed out a lawsuit claiming that Georgia’s new election law violates Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act only days before the Supreme Court laid down standards that make the lawsuit a nearly certain loser.

Justice knew the likely timing of the Court’s ruling in Brnovich v. DNC, so a fair guess is that Mr. Garland succumbed to White House and progressive pressure to make a political statement to support Democratic efforts in Congress to federalize state election laws in H.R.1.

Bad call. Now federal judges hearing the case will have to contend with Justice Samuel Alito’s five principles in Brnovich as they assess the Georgia statute.

It won’t be easy to find legal fault under those principles. Mere voting inconvenience can’t be considered disqualifying, since all voting imposes some inconvenience. Any specific voting provision, such as the number of drop boxes, must also be considered in the overall context of a state’s voting rules. Georgia’s rules are generally lenient and don’t especially burden the ability of minorities to vote.

Perhaps Justice can find a federal judge somewhere to rule against Georgia, but such a ruling is unlikely to survive on appeal to higher courts. The legal and political result of the lawsuit is therefore likely to vindicate Georgia Republicans during the 2022 election season or leading up to 2024, depending on how the lawsuits proceed. Mr. Garland would be wise to drop the suit in light of Brnovich, lest his term at Justice be marred by the continuation of this patently political lawsuit.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/07/02/supreme-court-arizona-election-law-georgia-merrick-garland/7825500002/

With its decision Thursday in the voting rights case of Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, the court closed its term with a decision that will resonate not just legally but politically for years to come.

The 6-3 decision upheld Arizona’s new voting rules in Arizona over claims of racial discrimination. While the court said it would be imprudent to create a sweeping rule for all future such cases, it was equally imprudent for the Biden administration to ignore the forthcoming decision in filing a new challenge to Georgia’s new voting rights. The lawsuit against Georgia’s new voting rules was clearly timed to beat the court to the punch, but Brnovich delivers a haymaker for those seeking to block such state laws. Indeed, the decision magnifies the concern that the Georgia challenge is more of a political than a legal statement from the Biden administration.

In his majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito upheld two new voting rules in Arizona that barred “harvesting” of votes by political groups and discarded ballots cast in the wrong precinct. The lower courts divided on the question. Some rejected the discrimination claims. However, the Ninth Circuit reheard the case and struck down the provisions. Alito rejected claims that such laws are presumptively racist and more narrowly construed the reach of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which forbids restrictions that abridge the right to vote on account of race.

The Supreme Court agreed with a lower court that upheld the laws, that “the spark for the debate over mail-in voting may well have been provided by one Senator’s enflamed partisanship, but partisan motives are not the same as racial motives.”

Misinformation on Georgia voting law

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/06/ny_mayors_race_in_chaos_as_135000_extra_votes_show_up.html

Don’t you dare question the integrity of the 2020 presidential election because Democrats can always be trusted to run fair, honest and transparent elections. That’s the narrative and you’re expected to stick with it, even in the face of then nation’s biggest, richest, most sophisticated city obviously bungling the race to elect its next mayor.

It’s so blatant that even the New York Times recognizes the problem and applies the word “chaos.” Katie Glueck writes:

The New York City mayor’s race plunged into chaos on Tuesday night when the city Board of Elections released a new tally of votes in the Democratic mayoral primary, and then removed the tabulations from its website after citing a “discrepancy.”

The results released earlier in the day had suggested that the race between Eric Adams and his two closest rivals had tightened significantly.

But just a few hours after releasing the preliminary results, the elections board issued a cryptic tweet revealing a “discrepancy” in the report, saying that it was working with its “technical staff to identify where the discrepancy occurred.”